


Irresistible Forces

by jucee



Category: Slam Dunk
Genre: Blink and you'll miss it, M/M, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jucee/pseuds/jucee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akagi is an immovable object, but Miyagi is an irresistible force.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irresistible Forces

On the day that Miyagi Ryota walks into the school gymnasium, you decide that he’s a troublemaker, and you resolve to ignore him until he drops out of the basketball club, as he inevitably will.

You watch as he baits the third-years, his voice lilting too obviously on the second syllable when he says sen- _pai_. And yet he always speaks respectfully to the second-years, to you and Kogure. You watch as he runs laps around the gym, around and around, and you wonder why.

* * *

In the first district game, he races down the court in an irresistible flash of red, making everybody else look slow, wooden. When the rest of the team starts to drag their feet, panting heavily, his breathing is still even, like yours. He shoots out passes to you from all sides of the key, without looking, yet finding you unerringly, as if he’s always aware of your position. 

The two of you make a good team, a fact which seems to surprise nobody but you.

* * *

He has a small gold stud in his left ear that glints under the gym’s lights, and it catches your eye over and over again, but it’s only when you suddenly can’t do it anymore that you realise you’ve made a habit of glancing at it.

He’s in hospital with fractured ribs and internal bleeding, and it’ll be weeks before he can walk again, let alone fly down the court towards you with the ball secure in his hands, a smile playing at the corners of his lips like he knows something you don’t, his earring gleaming bright gold.

Kogure goes to visit him; you find out afterwards that your name was also on the get-well card.

* * *

When he returns to the team, there are fireworks and headaches. He’s still a troublemaker, you think as you hold him by the scruff of the neck (his skin warm beneath your palm, your fingertips brushing the stud in his ear), like Sakuragi and even Rukawa, but it’s trouble that you can handle. 

You try not to think too far ahead, to the time when it’ll all become his responsibility, but the thought still occurs to you now and then; you wonder if it might not have been better after all for him to have dropped out of the club after the first week.

* * *

During the prefectural finals, you see that he is just as he was before, those clever passes, that cocky smile, that irresistible energy and speed. He passes the ball to you while looking at Mitsui on the outside, but you can still remember the feeling of his eyes on you a moment before, even after the ball reaches your hands and everything else is driven from your mind.

* * *

You will miss this, you think as you leave the court for the last time. You will miss the long hours of practice, the heat of competition, the bright lights, the worn orange leather, the squeaking of basketball shoes.

There will always be basketball, but it won’t be the same.

When you open your eyes, he’s standing before you, looking heartbroken and lost, feeling responsible. And this is when you finally know, with an inexplicable certainty, that he will be all right, and so will you.


End file.
